Mark Twain did not come to Hartford to live until he was
nearly forty years old and he lived here only about twenty years,
spending a good deal of those years abroad; and yet we of
Hartford think of him always as a Hartford man, though in fact he
was a man of all the world. No other citizen of the United
States, not General Grant nor Theodore Roosevelt, was more
universally known and no other American author was ever so
generally read. We of Hartford base our claim to him on the fact
that he identified himself with this community as he did with no
other, and on the other and still more welcome fact that here he
spent the happiest and the most useful of his nearly four score
years. Although he made his home for some time in New York and
later settled down in Redding, the feeling has never died out
here that he belonged to Hartford, and this has been intensified
by the fact that wherever any Hartford traveler went the first
question asked of him was whether he knew Mark Twain.

The man was original in everything, not least in insisting on
being referred to as Mark Twain and not as Mr. Clemens. The
essence of wit is said by those who undertake to analyze it to be
the unexpected, and it was the unexpected that Mark Twain was
always doing, even to building a house with its kitchen to the
street and the bricks laid at angles, and his humor was inborn
and inevitable; it was of the man himself. Like others of
literary fame, he was slow in being discovered, but, once found
out, he among all our distinctive humorists lasted through. His
vein was never worked out. From the publication of the "Jumping
Frog" he was a man of note, and as we have said already, for many
years he was the most universally read of the authors of his day
or any other day.

He enjoyed this as any author would, and he enjoyed it so much
that it stood in the way very probably of better work from his
wonderful brain and heart. If we are not mistaken, the readers of
this paragraph will generally agree that his finest book was the
"Prince and Pauper," but it sold the least, and he has been
quoted as giving that fact as his reason for not following that
line any further. If it sold the least, it was presumably desired
by the fewest number of people. It would be difficult to
determine his most popular work, but a first guess would name the
"Innocents Abroad," though you can go on from this to a dozen
others and smile as each title comes to mind. How entertaining
they were, and how keen he was in his knowledge of human
nature!

But with all that he wrote it was true of him, as it was of
his old-time associate here, Mr. Warner, that in private
conversation at the dinner table, about the billiard table, at
club meetings and every-day accidental meetings, his delightful,
spontaneous outpourings were more delicious than anything he
wrote; they were said and forgotten for lack of a Boswell. Mark
Twain enjoyed his success from all points of view. The money that
he made was mighty welcome to a man who had known poverty down to
the hunger line, but much of the pleasure of his wealth was in
the opportunity it gave him for helping others; his charity was
broad and abundant. He was singularly companionable and his
friends were among those whose friendship was a treasure. In his
hospitable home he entertained for years almost everybody of
literary prominence in the country, native or passing traveler.
But, with all his fame, he was democratic through and through. He
would receive a friend's call in the morning as he lay in bed
smoking, for he usually smoked several cigars before getting up,
and he would go down town without a hat and in his slippers and
dressing gown. He was a world celebrity and yet as approachable
and easy as the least known among those he passed on the
street.

Here he came and went day by day, and we all felt that he
belonged to us; here his family grew up, here his best work was
done, here many of his choicest friendships were formed, and
after he left here his troubles began. The first thought in
writing of Mark Twain is to quote one after another of his
whimsical and philosophical sayings and anecdotes. But there is
something about his last days that forbids all that. The lights
went out for him before life did. His wife died abroad; two of
his daughters died tragic deaths. He himself fell sick in far
Bermuda, and came back to an empty home to die. It is all so far
from the spirit of his earlier years -- from the time of his
twinkling eye and contagious smile and hearty laugh -- that one
can only say "The pity of it, the pity of it!" He is gone now. He
brightened life in that earlier, happier time, for a lot of us;
he will continue to brighten life as long as people know how to
read.